


Connections

by Alison_Ocean



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, One Shot, One Shot Collection, One-Shot, Reylo - Freeform, Throne Room Scene, also a little bit of Ben Solo hair appreciation, also light fluff, and some (imagined) memories featuring young Ben, because why not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-21 14:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13742889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alison_Ocean/pseuds/Alison_Ocean
Summary: This might have been his only chance to come back from the edge of oblivion, and now it’s passed forever.She failed.They both failed.(One-shots from both Kylo & Rey's POV; missing scenes from The Last Jedi, and interactions after the events on Crait.)(Will add more as I write them.)





	1. Broken

Her eyes are blinking frantically, but for the first few seconds all she can see is white. The velvety crunch of crystal cleanly fracturing, groaning metal, and the brightest light she’s ever set eyes on. She blinks and blinks, focusing on the colors that are slowly, slowly leaching back into her periphery. Blood reds flutter around the sparkling splotches that shimmer in her field of vision. Slowly, quietly, the throne room comes back into assembly.

Her back feels like one large bruise – the cold stone of a column is wedged half-under her right shoulder. She must have slammed into it when the force of it – or, more accurately, the Force of it – sent her flying. Her vision wobbles as she creakily rolls to her side. There’s a high-pitched note holding in her ears, and she rubs one absently as if to clear it. The action isn’t conscious, but she stands. Her right hand is stinging, and it absently presses against the onyx column as she surveys the room.

Fire rains from the ceiling is wispy rags, flaring and smoking out in tandem as they drift to the floor. Some of the floor is cracked and jagged thresholds are buckled against one another from the pressure. Her eyes fall to the near window – the thick spacecraft glass that would probably be the last surface on this ship to crack – and the faint flares of the Resistance fleet that are visible in the distance. The tiny vessels gleam and spark like circuits against the deceptively vacant sky.

The sight seems to suck all the air out of the room, and she suddenly becomes aware of herself as the situation crashes back around her shoulders.

 _The fleet_.  _The Resistance_.

She takes three automatic steps towards the glass, unthinking, willing herself to somehow be able to help them from this impossible vantage point. She stops cold.

_Ben._

She spins around, searching. The last thing she’d felt from him was choking fear, spitting with bursts of furious anger. His eyes had been determined, emphatic. She remembers the flutter of muscles beneath skin as his jaw locked, teeth gritted, tearing at the Force with, she was sure, every ounce of strength he possessed. Master Skywalker’s lightsaber suspended between them, and then… _white_. Just white. Surely he’s not seriously hurt. Surely she would have felt it if he’d…if she’d somehow… The stinging in her right hand seems to intensify with every pump of her pulse.

Her eyes quickly snag on the broad stroke of his shoulders, encased in black. He is lying on his side, facing away from her. His black hair is wrung wildly around his head, catching the light in strange ways. It’s all she can do to look away from it and watch where she’s stepping as she charges across the room. The only thing that could distract her in that moment – a wink of aluminum and brass near her feet – makes her slow. Without breaking stride, she bends and scoops up the mangled half of a lightsaber hilt.

She steps over Ben’s long legs and crouches beside him. His eyes are closed; his body is eerily still. The first dredges of panic bubble in her chest. She clamps her lips shut against the instinct to call his name, but her fingers are insistent as they part the mass of dark waves at his neck and press against the pulse point beneath his jaw. Warm life murmurs beneath her fingertips, and she can see the gleaming tendrils part near his lips as he slowly exhales. The tension leaves her shoulders in a rush, making her dizzy.

His skin is so soft where she’s touching it. Soft and warm. He is all smoothed edges and bold lines. A twisted strand of hair cuts his face in two, following the trail of the scar across his eyebrow, shadowing the fine line of his nose. His face looks so young when it’s relaxed like this in unconsciousness. Reflexively, she flattens her palm against his neck, letting it rest like it belongs there. She can feel gentle curls, damp with sweat, rasping against her calloused fingers. The heat rolls off of him in waves, making the skin beneath her arm guards prickle.

She’s looking at him, and suddenly she can see it – a vast desert stretching out in front of her.  _Her_ desert, with its two blazing suns crowded together against the violet horizon. A young boy in a dark brown tunic swings a wooden staff first one way, then another. His pale face is somber as he practices, but his eyes are bright and unhaunted. Unhunted. There are no bruise-like circles carved permanently beneath them. His height and posture suggest an athleticism beyond his years, and the promise of greater skill to come.

Han Solo walks across the dune towards him, his steps tentative, his eyes on the boy. He reaches behind him and General Organa steps forward to take his hand, pulling him in until his arm is looped loosely around her waist; the picture of harmony. Han shouts something to the boy and he turns around suddenly, cropped hair bristling in the desert wind. The boy’s stance is stiff and awkward, but a cautious smile brings light into his face. Far away as she is, Rey can’t tell whether the light reaches his eyes.

She comes back to herself, shaking off her imaginings. She’s probably only seeing what she wants to see. The Ben Solo stretched in front of her is obviously far removed from the boy he once was. One would never be able to tell from the thick pads of muscle and tension that cover him like constant armor, that he had once been just a child; the son of royalty, no less.

She slides another glance to his face – checking that he’s still unconscious just as much as she’s retracing its softer edges. She has the sinking feeling that she may never see them again, after tonight. If Snoke was telling the truth, the bond they shared could be closed forever. The vision she saw had been a lie; she shouldn’t have trusted it so implicitly. They had both been deceived; both of their weaknesses laid bare.

The sound of rushing water fills her ears, and she wants to throw her fist into something – hard. But there’s nothing to fight here. It’s just her and this tortured man who, for one moment, had turned against everything he knew and fought by her side. For her; for  _them_. Her head bows with the weight of the memory. So much brought into the light, and it still hadn’t been enough. He might never turn towards it again. This might have been his only chance to come back from the edge of oblivion, and now it’s passed forever.

She failed.

They both failed.

The knowledge puts a burning ache in her throat and suddenly she can’t look at him. Her hand drops limply back to her side. It feels empty, and cold in a way it didn’t before. There’s an uncharacteristic stiffness in her limbs as she lurches to her feet, backing away. Like a rift has opened up in the ground, she can’t put distance between them fast enough.

She scans the floor, and quickly spots the other half of the lightsaber’s hilt, thrown against the far wall. Thankfully, the Kyber crystals appear to still be wedged inside the chamber. She will have to rebuild it. Maybe there’s something in the Jedi texts that can guide her. Maybe Master Skywalker can talk her through it.

She refuses to think of the one other person, presumably in the entire galaxy, who would know how to rebuild a saber. Just like she refuses to look back as she approaches the raised panel that marks the hatch to the escape shuttle. She can’t help reaching back with her feelings, however. The only other energy in the room remains calm and still, despite the distant battle. Oblivious, for now. Peaceful, even. She envies him that peace, no matter how brief it is.

She makes an effort to close off her feelings as she shuts the hatch and inputs the coordinates. The action feels like cauterizing a wound, and she gets a taste of how much it will throb later, when she’s alone. She grits her teeth against the phantom pain. Her knuckles are white as she makes the jump to light speed. 


	2. Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's probably best to read my other work, "Disquiet", before reading this little chapter. It provides a more thorough examination of where Kylo's head is at after the events on Crait, which this chapter doesn't really do. :)

He’s standing on the observation deck, overlooking the main hangar. The thick glass creates a barrier between him and the outside world. It’s familiar, like looking out from inside a cockpit.  He watches the droids and mechanics scurry across the polished floor, shooting sparks as they weld and perfect the twisted metal skeletons of the tie fighters. Heavy chains shackle the ships to their ports, like slaves in bondage.

He can see himself, running under the protective shadows of the ship decks. Dodging booted feet and bickering voices, searching for his father somewhere amongst the mangled scraps and smoky breath. He can see him now, buried inside the body of the Falcon, like a tumor. But instead of taking life, his father sometimes seemed to be the only entity straddled between the creaky ship and its inevitable junkyard resting place. He remembers spending hours watching, usually hanging over the rails of a walkway overhead, feet dangling, waiting for Han Solo to look up from the work he loved and return to reality. By the time they sent him away, he had long stopped waiting.

His mother was sometimes there – a gentle, but firm hand squeezing his shoulder. A humming presence that wrapped around him like an embrace, even from far away. A democratic precept always in his ear.

He can’t think about her for long. The fire in his chest begs for relief after only a moment of it.

He comes here often, to listen and watch. When the waters rise, threatening to drown him, he comes here for air. He can feel his father’s memory like a pulse, but somehow it doesn’t hurt here, encased in muted noise. Machinery and wrenches. When he closes his eyes to the sounds, he can see home – more clearly than anywhere else on the ship. And somehow, the memory doesn’t sting as much as it normally does.

He is standing still, hands clasped loosely in front of him. Observing. Ruminating. As if they know that they are safe here, the memories come in gentle waves; lapping at the shore of consciousness. Flickers and feelings, warming him in places that do not see the light of day. He knows he should feel guilty, indulging in them. The sentiment will only make him weaker. It already has. The conflict twitches, ever awake.

It brings to mind another conflict, of a more external nature. He grimaces. _Hux._

Hux will need to be monitored more closely. Perhaps he should assign a member of the Knights to shadow him. The over-eager general has been salivating for a counterstrike after their most recent defeat. However, with the Resistance currently lost to the vacuum of space, the general has switched his aim to neutral systems, as well as those who were ancient allies of the Republic, which fell long before the Resistance was born. Hux’s bloodthirst has always been almost tactile, and he can feel yellowing eyes on his back whenever they are in the same room. But a garish exhibition of power is unnecessary from the Order, in the current galactic climate; tactical diplomacy is their best recourse for maintaining their settled borders. Unnecessary violence would only breed insurrection; inadvertently aiding the Resistance’s cause. The general does not see it this way. It’s most likely that he simply refuses to.

He will have to make a show of force soon, lest Hux move from quietly seething to openly questioning his authority…

The pressurized whine of a soldering gun interrupts his train of thought, spinning him back into the past for a brief second.

Suddenly, the moment seems to shift. Reality melds, fluxing and recalibrating almost simultaneously, like the piece of metal being ironed out below. Any nostalgia he was feeling fades as the deja-vu appears – pressing against his forehead, petal-soft and dense. The air around him is still. Utterly still. Time is gone. Sound is gone. A vacuum.

He doesn’t even have time to exhale. Then—

 

She’s on the floor, in front of him. It’s faster than a blink. Faster than the jump to light-speed. He can’t imagine how the atoms moved aside in time to make room for her. It denies conception.

She’s lying, half on her side, legs bent crookedly beneath her. Her entire body convulses in one large contraction – like she just fell from a great height somewhere else, and has somehow landed in this room, on this floor, with him. In fact, it looks like that’s exactly what’s happened. The awkward twist of her body transmits _pain_ and, before his gaze even reaches her face, a deafening pull in the back of his head shoves the information forward. She’s not breathing.

Her eyes are incredulous; a strange combination of stupefied and suffering. She’s not looking at him. Her cheeks are sucked in, and her forehead is matted with sweat; he can see a determined curl spiraling against the dewy skin of her temple. Her arm is bent at an unusual angle. It’s curled protectively around her right side. Her mouth is gaping, and the skin above her collarbone pulls inward dramatically, putting her clavicle in sharp relief. Her lungs seem to writhe in her chest, and he can feel the tightness like it’s his own. The intuitive pull tugs again, and he immediately understands. She fell on her right side. Her ribs are bruised, one or two may even be broken. The wind got knocked out of her. _She can’t breathe_.

…She isn’t here on purpose.

…This is neither of their doings.

…Snoke is dead…

 

That’s as far as he’s able to think for now. He acts on pure instinct. Countless times falling off of tauntauns mid-gallop, careening down the sides of boulders that he’d climbed under blazing desert suns, getting blindsided by the business end of a broadsword during his training, having the oxygen decompound in his lungs under the inimitable sear of electricity…

He doesn’t feel where the movement starts. It’s all one fluid motion, like falling itself. He’s suddenly kneeling beside her and her eyes have bolted up to lock on to his. Shock, first. Then he sees suspicion. He senses it, too. Betrayal. The bitter aftertaste of uncertainty, wrapped tightly in overwhelming sadness. Unguarded and screaming, her feelings are coming at him in surges. He ignores them. His arm is braced around her right side. He can feel her ribs burn against his forearm. It’s impossible that he would feel the infinitesimal tremors in the bones, still singing from their impact with the ground like plucked strings. Impossible – but he does.

“Easy.”

The words sound like they’re coming from someone else.

“Easy. Breathe.”

It’s a command.

Her throat hitches noiselessly. Her eyes stay locked on his, impossibly wide. He feels trapped there. He can’t look away any more than she can. Another second passes. All at once, a single sound breaks the silence. It starts small, then expands to fill the void, bouncing against the walls, roaring in his ears. A ragged gasp. He can feel her body expand beneath his hand. The offending ribs strain against the obstacle of his arm. Even through his padded sleeve, he can feel the supple give of skin.

Her muscles jerk automatically with the renewed flow of oxygen, and she jackknifes into a more upright sitting position. Her face is suddenly intimately close to his; so close her forehead is the only part in focus. He sees a familiar crease form there as her eyebrows pull together. Confusion, camphoric and hazy, douses him. He’s honestly not completely sure whether the feeling is hers or his. She sucks in another breath—

And she’s gone. There’s nothing under his arm. His gloved hand quivers against vacant air. The sound of machinations has started up again.

The dull humming continues, unbroken, as he unsteadily rises to his feet. Stiffly, moving like an old man, he takes two steps backward. His left calf bumps against the sharp outcrop of a bench. He drops heavily on to it. His shoulders are heaving. The inside of his nose is burning.

It takes him a second to become aware of the pain. When he does, he immediately relaxes his jaw. Like his fists, he’d been holding it clenched closed, impossibly tight. Like his teeth could break.


End file.
